USTFCCCA Love

It’s a bit of a quiet week as we approach NCAAs on Saturday. We’ll share more information on how you can follow the meet later this week, but for now, we have to share some recognition a number of Ivies are receiving from the USTFCCCA.

The Penn Quakers continue to make school history in the USTFCCCA National polls. They reached a new all-time high ranking of #21 in the final polls going into this Saturday’s NCAA Championships. Georgetown – the only team to best the Quakers at the Mid-Atlantic Regional meet – is now ranked #13. The Cornell Big Red were the only other Ivy men team getting love in the USTFCCCA poll. Due to their third place finish at the Northeast Regional and having two individual men qualify for NCAAs – Ben Rainero and Brian Eimstad – they receive some votes to sit in at the unofficial #35 position.

The Princeton Lady Tigers continue to creep up the USTFCCCA National polls. Due to their third place finish in the Mid-Atlantic Region and claiming an at-large berth for NCAAs, they moved up one position to #22. The national poll also gave votes to two other Ivy women teams. The Brown Bears are unofficially ranked #35 after surprising the Northeast Region field with their third place team finish, while the Yale Bulldogs were the last team to receive votes to get an unofficial #38 ranking.

USTFCCCA also announced their annual Regional Awards yesterday, honoring the top athletes and coaches within each cross country region. Dartmouth’s Dana Giordano was honored as the Northeast Region Female Athlete of the Year due to her regional race win on Friday. Giordano has qualified for NCAAs for the third straight year and is looking to redeem herself after narrowly missing out on All-American honors last year due to falling in the first mile of the 2014 NCAA Championships. Penn’s head coach Steve Dolan was honored by USTFCCCA with his second Mid-Atlantic Region Men’s Coach of the Year award for coaching the Quakers to their first NCAA berth in 40 years and a near HepsXC title. Dolan is the first Penn coach to be honored with this award. He was previously given this award when he was coaching the Princeton men back in 2010 when the team won the Mid-Atlantic Region title.

photo by Michael Scott

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2015 at 12:42 pm. It is filed under Athletes, Spotlight.
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